


When You're Near

by inkshaming



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Fluff, Growing Old Together, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-04-08 03:23:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4288860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkshaming/pseuds/inkshaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“…Captain?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It was as if Eren had been taken back in time. When was the last time he’d seen Levi? The day of the parade? The trial? The man was a vision from the past, an apparition, and Eren found himself reaching out—needing to touch that familiar face, the faded black jacket, those scarred hands—just to chase away his disbelief.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He looked exactly as Eren remembered.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Hullo, Eren,” Levi muttered, and though it had been too long since he’d last heard that voice, Eren could still feel it weakening whatever had held him tight, making it easier to breathe. “It’s been awhile.”</em>
</p>
<p>A Canon/Post-Canon Soulmates AU where Eren and Levi beat the Titans and beat the odds, winning the chance to grow old  and live out the rest of their lives together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a soulmates prompt where people age until they reach 18 and then stop aging unless in the presence of their soulmate/s so they can grow old together.
> 
> Edited by my lovely friend and thoughtful beta, [ChristmasRivers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristmasRivers) ~ thank you! :D

Levi found his first gray hair in 845.

It was only one – near his left temple – and for a while, he did his best to keep it hidden, all the while trying to surreptitiously check if anyone else in the Survey Corps had started changing too.

No one had.

*

There was one day, before his world went to hell, that Eren grew a full two inches between breakfast and supper. He wasn't eighteen yet, but it wasn't unheard of for someone to grow after running into their soulmate. After his mother had commented on it as the family sat at dinner, Mikasa quietly slunk back to her room to see if she had grown too. 

She hadn’t.

Armin said it was because Eren had been trying so hard to see the Survey Corps return – Eren had always been a little crazy about them – but Eren had told him that if he grew two inches every time he saw the Survey Corps, he’d be as tall as the Wall Maria.

The trio had laughed, and promptly forgot.

*

After a while, Levi stopped hiding it. It had been almost five years since it first appeared; five years, yet he didn’t look a day over eighteen.

All he really wanted to do was forget, but the rest of the Corps made that difficult. He’d heard it all, heard the special ops squad taking bets on whether or not he was dying the other hairs black, heard Hanji and Erwin and Mike whispering worriedly about it between themselves when they thought he wasn’t near. Heard two recruits snickering about how they suspected Levi had killed his soulmate in order to live forever, and that his only regret was that he would stay short forever too.

The lavatories had been astonishingly well kept for a month afterward. It was hard _not_ to be meticulous when you were cleaning with a toothbrush.

The last thing Levi wanted was to spend every morning remembering the fact that he had met his soulmate only once, and had never seen them since.

They were probably dead.

*

That night at supper had been the last time Carla Jaeger ever looked on proudly as her son wriggled up against the wall with the nocks in the wood to see how tall he had gotten. She always wondered – for she knew the cause – who her son had met that day, and where they were now, and if they would love Eren as much as she did.

She never got to find out.

When Eren, Armin, and Mikasa enlisted, Armin joked that Eren only wanted to join the Survey Corps so he could grow again, but none of them laughed.

There wasn’t much to laugh about anymore.

*

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Levi grumbled. Having to stand guard over some titan-mutant-freak-brat was bad enough. The hour of the night made it even worse. But now this?

His shins hadn’t hurt this badly since he had lived in the Underground.

And it wasn’t your normal, ‘damn, you’ve been on your feet, running around killing titans all day’ kind of hurt - this was beyond belief. This was a ‘surprise, someone drove two nails into your shinbones!’ kind of hurt, a throbbing ache that wouldn’t get better, no matter what Levi did.

When Hanji had the audacity to tell him, “oh, that sounds like growing pains” after Levi had limped to their room shortly before midnight for help, Levi almost punched them in the nose.

Levi hadn’t grown in years.

*

The muted shock – the grudging admiration – on the captain’s face at Eren’s vicious promise shouldn’t have left Eren feeling so pleased. But Eren, despite the atrocious situation he was in, couldn’t help himself.

It was Levi Ackerman after all. Eren had admired him for years.

That fleeting sense of happiness lessened somewhat as Captain Levi Ackerman kicked the living shit out of him in the courtroom the next morning, but Eren would not be denied. He had made it into the Survey Corps, and he didn’t care if Armin teased him for it later – he stood another inch taller for it.

It wasn’t until Levi sat down next to Eren after the court appeal that Eren noticed the shimmer of gray hair at Levi’s temple.

There were two.

*

Levi couldn’t believe it.

He sat on the edge of his bed, motionless, eyes glued to the sight of his ankles, now exposed from beneath the hem of his pants for the first time in…

…for the first time in years.

He tried on another pair. Maybe the first pair had been shrunk in the wash, maybe they were – _shudder_ – someone else’s. When the second pair was too short, he tried a third. And a fourth.

There was no denying it. Levi had grown two inches, almost overnight.

He scoured his memory, trying with all his might to remember something, anything. Who had he seen again for the first time in five years?

All he could picture was Hanji’s shit-eating grin when they discovered he was wearing high-waters. Levi scowled. If this continued, he’d need a new harness – how many people would talk then?

*

It was Eren who figured it out first – thanks to the way the skin on his face would itch when he was training anywhere near the captain.

It was ridiculous, really. 

Levi Ackerman made Eren grow facial hair.

Or facial _hairs_ , to be precise. Six of them, dark and bristly and awkward, at the bottom of his chin. And one on his neck for good measure. For the first time in his life, Eren was immensely glad about his regenerative titan abilities.

He was terrible at shaving.

*

Thankfully, Levi did not grow any taller – years of malnutrition as a child had taken care of that a long time ago. He did, however, have to relocate that black hair-dye. Two more white hairs had joined the first. Every morning, Levi scoured his scalp in the mirror for any sight of more where he couldn’t reach.

He lived in terror of missing one.

*

"Oh my goodness, Eren," Hanji exclaimed, flicking the tape measure back around their wrist. "That's another half an inch! In just two days! I wonder if that's a shifter ability – it can't be what we're feeding you."

But Hanji already knew the answer.

They wondered who it was. Eren was being exposed to all sorts of new people every day, it could be any one of them.

...Well, except for Hanji – they started aging again when they met Moblit. 

...Couldn’t be the 104th regiment either, he hadn’t aged a day with them. 

...And it didn't seem to be anyone on the special ops squad, though it was hard to tell. 

_It could be Levi,_ Hanji mused. Of course, Levi slouched so darn much these days it'd be difficult to see if he had grown, but didn't he still have that hair dye they made for him, back when the first white hair had shown up? 

Hanji cracked a wicked grin. There was only one way to find out.

*

"Really Erwin, a recon mission _inside_ the walls?"

Erwin shrugged. "Came in this morning. We need more arable land, and after the fall of the outer wall, people became nervous about living so near the Wall Rose. Many people abandoned the area, but the land may still be good. If so, we definitely need it."

Levi felt his eyes narrow. "So why aren't you sending another squad? Even the recruits could do this."

"We could send another squad, yes, but then our ranks would be down another squad if something were to arise - and if something happened to the squad, they may not be prepared for it. Whereas if we send you..."

"Fine, fine, I understand," Levi snapped. "I've been meaning to request some solo work anyways." It would give him a chance to remove his jacket, which had grown tight across his shoulders.

"But it won't be solo, Levi," Hanji cut in gleefully. "You have a responsibility, remember?"

*

"Pack your bags, kid," Levi grumbled as he flung the basement door open. Eren woke with a jolt, and the open, startled look on his face was, frankly, endearing. 

"We're leaving?" Eren spluttered, scrambling to his feet.

"Immediately. Land surveying at the edge of the Wall Rose."

"Did someone from the squad come to wake me already? I didn't mean to fall back aslee-"

"No one came to wake you, kid," Levi replied. "This mission is just the two of us."

Levi wasn't sure if he should've felt insulted by the alarm that blazed across the boy's face.

“We leave at dawn.”

*

“Shit!” Eren hissed, and then he nervously checked over his shoulder.

Levi hadn’t stirred.

Yet.

Dawn was quickly approaching – Eren could see the edge of the sky blushing pink – and Eren stared into the depths of his bag with a growing sense of panic.

He had forgotten to pack a razor.

Eren could feel them when he brushed his chin with his thumb – those short, damningly dark hairs prickling across his skin may very well be the death of him. He briefly considered trying to shave with one of his spare blades, but then rejected the idea.

He’d probably end up accidentally slitting his own throat if the captain happened to wake and startle him.

“Hey, Eren.”

Eren practically jumped out of his skin. He clapped a hand to his chin as he turned to see Levi sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as his blanket slipped from around his shoulders.

Eren felt his heart lurch. “Good morning, Captain,” he spluttered, looking everywhere but Levi’s steel-gray eyes.

Levi gave him a funny look.

“At sunrise, we move.”

*

Eren was acting strangely.

More so than usual.

And it was driving Levi mad.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he finally snapped after asking Eren a question and watching his hand jump to his chin _again_ as the boy turned to stare at him, looking panicked. Before Eren could move out of reach, Levi grabbed his wrist in one hand and Eren’s jaw in the other. He could feel Eren’s pulse fluttering rapidly under his fingertips as he tilted the boy’s face up so he could inspect.

Levi found the stubble instantly and looked back at the boy with a smirk. “Forget something, Jaeger?” he asked, brushing his thumb once over the course black hairs. Eren’s cheeks burned in response.

“It’s alright, kid. Happens to the best of us,” Levi added gently as Eren looked away. “You can use mine, if you'd like; I can use my knife.”

Eren’s eyes widened.

“Thank you, Captain,” he murmured, looking away. He didn’t hazard another glance until Levi moved on, taking the lead again.

Another hair gleamed silver in the sunlight that caught the captain's retreating figure.

*

Eren thought the recon mission would never end.

Every second under the captains's gaze had been agony as he waited for the knife to fall, for the captain to look at him and notice how much Eren's wrists stuck out from the cuffs of his jacket, how he struggled to secure his harness in the same places he had just a week ago, how, by the end of the mission, Eren limped with every step because his boots had suddenly become too tight.

But Levi never did.

As soon as he could, Eren snuck off to the supply closet, hoping that _somebody_ had gone through a major growth spurt in his absence. Eren had a trunk-full of clothes to replace.

"Feeling a little longer in the tooth, Eren?"

Eren froze. A torch blazed to life in the far corner of the room.

"Hanji?!" the boy croaked, heartbeat skittering in his throat.

Hanji grinned, their glasses gleaming in the firelight. "I had a feeling you'd show your face here, if I waited long enough. It's Levi, isn't it."

Eren swallowed hard, unable to speak.

Hanji's smile could've outshone the sun. "I love when I'm right," they beamed. "I had a feeling Levi had started going gray again. Where did you see him, five years ago?"

"Shiganshina," Eren whispered. "I went to see the Survey Corps off."

"You haven't told him yet, have you?" they asked gently.

Eren shook his head.

"Best to let him figure it out on his own, I think."

Eren wasn't so sure he wanted Levi to figure it out at all.

*

Levi stared at his reflection in the mirror.

He looked older. For the first time in over a decade, Levi looked older.

There was a knock at the door, and Erwin let himself in. 

"Ah, Levi..." he murmured, stunned. So he had noticed - of course he did. Those icy eyes of his never missed a thing.

Levi said nothing.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Like _hell_ I want to talk about it." Levi's voice cracked.

He had a soulmate.

His soulmate was alive.

And he was _here._

"It's Eren-fucking-Jaeger," he hissed. 

Eren Jaeger, the titan-shifter, the hope of humanity, the _child Levi was tasked to kill, if necessary – Eren Jaeger_ was Levi's soulmate.

"I know."

All at once, Levi seemed to deflate. He lowered his head heavily into his hands.

"I don't deserve him, Erwin.”

"Do we ever?" Erwin would never be sure. He had stopped aging the day Mike never made it back.

“I have blood. On my hands,” Levi whispered. “So much blood. I have lied, I have stolen, I have cheated, I have killed – I have killed again… and again… and again.”

“You should talk to him.”

Levi was silent for a long, long time.

“I would ruin him.”

*

Levi wasn’t at Eren’s training the next day.

Or the next.

He wasn’t seen at dinner either, or at breakfast in the morning, but the one time Eren summoned up the courage to wander the eastern wing of the Survey Corps’ castle, Eren heard footsteps beyond the door to Levi’s room, pacing back and forth, back and forth. When Levi stopped to call out “who’s there?” Eren suddenly couldn’t take it.

He fled.

*

Levi couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t unlike him – sleeplessness had been a near constant companion to him for many years – but now, now of all times, Levi wanted nothing more than to sleep and forget.

And he could do neither, so he walked.

The night lay quietly upon the castle’s stone walls, and Levi was quieter, padding through corridors, across ramparts, climbing restlessly, as if he could somehow escape his own thoughts if he just climbed high enough.

“I didn’t think anyone'd find me out here,” someone murmured. Levi whirled.

Eren was sitting on the far side of the shallow rooftop, knees tucked close underneath his chin, arms wound tightly around them. If he had stayed quiet, Levi wouldn’t even have known he was there.

“Shouldn’t you be in the dungeon?” Levi asked. His voice sounded raw, like it hadn’t been used in days.

It hadn’t.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Eren replied.

The kid had a point.

“Why are you barefoot?” The shingles, Levi noticed, were dashed with thin streaks of a dark liquid that reflected faintly in the light of the half-moon, but Eren’s feet were unmarked and whole. Just like the rest of him.

“I outgrew my boots,” Eren breathed a weary sigh. “Again.”

Suddenly, Levi felt like he wasn’t the only who was much older than he appeared. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I know.”

The moon rose higher.

“When did you... you know?”

Eren looked at Levi for a long time before replying. “Figure it out? A few weeks, ago” he murmured. A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Being around you made my face itch.”

Levi snorted. “You sure that’s not just allergies, kid?”

“Nope,” Eren replied, popping the sound out with his lips. “Facial hair.”

“…you’re not serious.”

“Cross my heart,” Eren swore solemnly. “That’s how I knew it was you.”

And Levi wanted it to be him. He wanted, more in that moment than ever before, to see where time would take the two of them, wanted to be the one that made him smile like he’d just hung the moon, wanted to be the one who grew old beside him, just like this curse had intended.

“It shouldn’t be me, Eren,” Levi whispered. 

Eren was silent.

“You know my orders. I may be your comrade, but damn it, Eren, I’m also your executioner – _I_ am the one who has to kill you if the need arises, and I am the last one who deserves to call you my –”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eren whispered.

“It should.” 

“It doesn’t.”

“Eren, listen, please believe me." Levi begged, finally breaking. "I’m no good to you. You are young and brilliant and _whole_ – everything that I’m not. You deserve someone who will protect you, someone who will make you happy, and that someone isn’t m–”

Eren cut his word off with a kiss, his lips pressing urgently to Levi’s, fiercely, as if keeping the words from being said would somehow alter the truth they embodied. When he drew back, far too fast, far too soon, he looked just as stunned as Levi felt. Levi could hear the boy’s heartbeat hammering in his chest.

“When you take up the sword and hold my life in your hands,” Eren murmured, “you _are_ protecting me – protecting me from hurting the people I love.”

“When I fight by your side, we fight for the freedom of humanity and you _do_ make me happy – because the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to be free.” 

Levi tried to speak, but his lips tasted like Eren.

“You don't think I'm broken, but I am, Levi. I am…”

When Eren paused, voice choking off into silence, Levi swore the world paused too.

“But when you’re near me, Levi, I feel… _whole_ again. Can’t that be enough?”

And then Levi knew.

Yes. 

He would _make_ it enough.


	2. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six years after the fall of the titans...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work began as a one-shot. It was meant to stay a one-shot.
> 
> Oops.
> 
> The following chapters will pursue the lives of Eren and Levi in the years after the fall of the titans and the end of the war, and the journey they will take as they grow old together, as the soulmate spell had intended. 
> 
> As much as I would have liked to avoid it, there are changes in style between the previous chapter and this one. In the time that has passed since I first wrote this piece, I've grown a lot as a writer, and I think it really shows here. Because of this, I elected to keep the first chapter exactly as it was. This chapter would not have been finished if it wasn't for the support and encouragement of my amazing friends, particularly ChristmasRivers, my amazing bae-ta. I love you all very much, and I hope you enjoy! <3

The sun rose on empty fields, on the steaming bones of fallen forms that would not rise again.

The solemn hush that lay across the morning was an enduring one, broken only by the uncertain sound of birdsong and the crunch of metal slicing through soil. Spirits wandered here, making themselves felt in the sudden weakening of knees and the stunned pause of footsteps, the collapse of hearts along deep-seated fissures.

For the first time, the Survey Corps could hold a proper burial. The feeling of shovels in their hands, the earth cracking and giving beneath their feet, was an unfamiliar one.

In an odd, aching sort of way, however, it was also a necessary one. The end was swift, but peace came slowly. It was a reality that defied understanding, that needed to be grounded in something even the weariest soul could comprehend.

Peace was the sound of earth being overturned.

It whispered beneath the ache that settled into wilting shoulders, and the blisters that rose on bloodstained palms. It was staring at all the mounds in the dirt and wondering what could be used to mark the graves. It hid in the tranquil starting and stopping of the breeze and the lingering fear of standing so still beneath the morning sun. With the sound of shovels cutting through the earth came the realization that they would have to run from death no longer.

Peace was facing the light of dawn and knowing you could walk.

*

Peace was also utter chaos.

The downfall of humanity’s common enemy also brought about the downfall of any semblance of unity – after living so long in fear, mankind’s realization of its newfound freedom was a messy, capricious thing.

It was almost as if, when the Survey Corps returned, they came bearing war, not respite. Weary as they were, those that remained found themselves torn asunder, and they too were swallowed up in the tides of change.

Eren was summoned to the capitol. After long hours of interrogation, they found someone who was no longer quite a boy, but not quite a man either, and far more human than any of them. In the end, he kept his life and slipped through the cracks, disappearing in the shadows of his legend.

Feeling the weight of the emerald clasp at their throat, Hanji Zoe rose to the challenge of commanding the reorganization of the walls and the establishment of new efforts to improve food and water conditions. At their request, Levi joined them. He’d followed that winged crest for so long, he knew nothing else – so when it led him away from the special operations squad and those brilliant green eyes, he followed.

Even though his heart wasn’t in it.

With every step he took, he felt himself falling out of time, his bones knitting together, trapping years of future change between their spaces. After so long in Eren’s presence, losing the sensation of growth was like expecting summer and finding frost, the springtime flowers wilting and dying beneath the touch of a freezing wind.

The loss was hard, but Levi embraced it. Peace had robbed him of everything he’d ever known. Perhaps he just wasn’t cut out for change.

So he walked anyways, and he didn’t look back.

*

Eren rose with the sun.

The orphanage was almost silent at this hour, lulled with the hush of sleeping children, sprawling hope. Life was quieter here, but Eren liked it. Peace had a way of numbing the pain.

The mornings never stayed quiet for long, however. As the sun gleaned the dew from the summer grass, the orphanage quickly filled with sounds of small feet on hardwood, the older children rising first to dress and prepare breakfast before waking their younger brothers and sisters. The kitchen soon rang with the hiss of oil hitting hot pans, impatient shouts and patient mirth, the babble of hungry mouths. Eren sank daily into the sea of their laughter, letting it fill the hollowness in his chest.

Chores followed breakfast, and classes followed chores. The women who ran the orphanage taught all sorts of things. Gardening in the vernal months and quilting in the fall, and counting and arithmetic when the winter winds kept them huddled around the fires.

There were visitors, sometimes, and they taught too. Lessons in history and natural sciences from Armin, music from Historia when she could spare the time. Sasha spent every summer there, teaching cooking to the younger children and hunting to the elders – and when the women complained that the girls were learning archery, Sasha brought down a rabbit without looking and served it for dinner later that night. The complaints were quickly dropped.

Eren taught the young children how to read, and the older children how to write, tracing the letters on the blackboard as he tried not to remember learning scouting formations in just the same way. He ordered books, books by the cartload, whenever they could spare the money for it. Warm evenings were often spent on the porch, half-forgotten stories re-remembered as he coaxed the words from the pages in the light of the sunset, the pudgy fingers of his listeners following the letters and pulling on his shirt sleeve when they fell behind.

On cooler days, when the summer wind wandered across the spread of the open plains and the air buzzed with unspent energy, Eren occasionally taught hand-to-hand fighting too – but only taught. The days where he could rise to bloodlust were long behind him; where it once burned, only empty shadows lay. Sparring made him remember things he tried to forget.

Amid the chaos, peace became routine, and Eren told himself he was happy here. Told himself that he was content to stay in this place, never going past the river on the other side of the hill.

Only at night would he permit himself to feel the ache within his chest – the chafing that came with enduring his imprisonment though humanity had long been free, the feeling of his spirit shifting restlessly beneath unchanging skin. If he closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, the scent of the night wind on the open fields would almost convince him that he was somewhere else. Would almost convince him that he was back outside the walls, fetterless, and free.

And every night, he fell asleep knowing it was nothing but an empty hope, the awareness of his unseen chains an anchor to his soul. He would drift off in the silence and dream of the worlds beyond the walls.

Every night, that is, except this one.

*

At the sound of horse hooves in the yard outside his window, Eren was on his feet, empty hands twitching as he crept into the hall. Gone were the days he kept blades at the ready, but the kitchen was fairly well stocked. The rolling pin would have to do. The kitchen knives, he mused, could come later if need be.

Had he paused and taken a moment to _notice_ , Eren would have known who was waiting for him at the door without ever having to open it – would’ve noticed how the chains that had wrapped around his arms and legs so long ago had loosened, how the hands of time had slowly welcomed him back with open arms.

But Eren didn’t notice. Instead, he tugged the robe farther over his shoulders and held the rolling pin like a sword, and he wasn’t ready for who he found waiting at the door.

“… _Captain?_ ”

It was as if Eren had been taken back in time. When was the last time he’d seen Levi? The day of the parade? The trial? The man was a vision from the past, an apparition, and Eren found himself reaching out—needing to touch that familiar face, the faded black jacket, those scarred hands—just to chase away his disbelief.

He looked exactly as Eren remembered.

“Hullo, Eren,” Levi muttered, and though it had been too long since he’d last heard that voice, Eren could still feel it weakening whatever had held him tight, making it easier to breathe. “It’s been awhile.” Five long years.

“It has, hasn’t it,” Eren replied, watching Levi hesitate before stepping closer, his face for the first time, tentative and unsure. Uncertain.

So Eren smiled and let the door swing open all the way.

“But it’s good to see you.”

*

Levi settled carefully on the bench along the dining room table, looking about him as he did so. Everything in the kitchen looked exactly as he remembered it, – everything… including Eren.

“You haven’t changed.”

“Did you want me to?”

Levi traced the smooth wood with scarred fingers, his hands remembering the act of sanding, staining, and perfecting, even if the deed had been done so long ago. The oil lamp Eren had lit flickered gently in their silence.

“I don’t know,” Levi answered truthfully. If he was being honest, the fear that he wouldn’t be enough to wander this world side by side with this boy – now a man – had never left him. It lingered still, rising in the cracks between their words, in the furtive glances Levi cast when he thought Eren wasn’t looking.

He never thought he’d miss that shade of green.

“Fair,” Eren replied after a moment. He didn’t look at Levi – instead, he chose to watch the tea seeping slowly into the water, staining it a warm, fragrant hue, and filling the air with the scent of spices Eren couldn’t name. When it was done, he handed a cup to Levi. An offering.

“I’m glad though,” he added.

*

Levi stayed.

He picked up life at the orphanage easily, shrugging it on like a well-worn coat. There was a lot to do, Levi muttered, so he planned his days around fixing anything that could possibly need repairs and cleaning anything that didn’t. 

Eren suspected he just liked feeling useful.

The only real surprise, Eren found, was how little Levi actually managed to get done around the place. Dusting somehow turned to games of tag, and mopping became sparring practice. Laundry quickly devolved into hide-and-seek as children raced through the maze of wind-blown sheets, and many of Levi’s repairs were as likely to be made on a child’s toy - offered with teary eyes and shaking voices - as they were to be made on the aging building… when they weren’t stymied entirely by daring maneuver-gear rescues of a ball from the roof or a kite from the treetops.

No matter how many of the chores were neglected, however, they were always done by morning. 

Unlike the rest of the world, the children of the orphanage saw Levi as he really was, more man than myth, and as such, the visiting captain was the not the subject of awe, but of constant fascination. The children copied everything, from the way he dressed and spoke to the way he held his teacups at the dinner table - resulting in more broken glassware than Eren cared to admit. He developed quite a following; one young girl had taken to wearing a napkin in her collar to mimic his his cravat, and more than a few of the children had earned scoldings for imitating his language.

“Ian was grounded for cursing again,” Eren said one night, eyeing Levi meaningfully as a smile played on his lips.

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that, kid,” Levi grumbled. “I don’t know where he picked that up, but he sure as hell didn’t get it from me.”

His stories quickly became the highlight of the evenings, capturing the imaginations with daring tales from the Underground and the expeditions beyond the walls. Games of choice around the orphanage turned from hoops and hopscotch to scouts and robbers and capture the flag, played beneath the light of the fireflies and the stars.

They always played against Levi, and the children always won.

*

When the orphanage was quiet and the sun began to set, they went on walks together.

The summer grass was long and soft and their wandering steps left footprints, gentle reminders of their paths that were swept away by the evening breeze. Fireflies danced lazily in the last light of the golden air, and the hum of cicadas wove around the silences in their conversation. In the distance, they could almost see the lights of capital if they looked hard enough.

They never did.

Mostly, they talked. Sometimes they spoke of little things, and sometimes they spoke of nothing at all, just walked, enjoying the gentle rightness of the other’s presence by their side. Enjoying the feeling of their bones being in the right places, their skin shifting to accommodate the passage of time. The night Eren found another silver hair along Levi’s temple, he laughed. 

And his heart clenched at the sight of the look on Levi’s face when he traced the laugh lines beneath Eren’s eyes with shaking fingers.

And slowly, the spaces between them filled with comfort – the fear that once lay in the cracks slowly lost to the sands of time.

*

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Eren replied, easily making space for Levi beside him at the kitchen table. The children were asleep, but Eren had paperwork, and he saved that for the quieter hours, letting himself be where he was needed while he could.

Levi settled in quietly, his fingers curled over the rim of a teacup, his palm catching the steam that rose off the dark liquid, filling the air with the warm scent.

“That’ll keep you up, you know,” Eren murmured.

“Won’t be much of a difference then.”

“I suppose not.”

They were quiet, for a moment.

“...Tell me about the sea,” Levi said.

Eren looked up. In that moment, Levi could almost see the war again, locked tight behind the thin gold streaks in the young man’s eyes. It was the same kind of anger, and the same acceptance – the look of someone haunted by what he could not change.

“I wouldn’t know enough to tell you,” Eren replied, breaking the shared gaze to return to his writing. He said it like it was nothing, but Levi knew where to look – the bones of his hands were white beneath his taut skin. The quill quivered stiffly in his too-tight grip. Levi felt his breath catch.

“You weren’t on the expedition?”

“They didn’t let me go,” Eren answered. “The military police came one night, carrying my application. They told me I was too valuable to go beyond the walls anymore – they handed me my paperwork and told me I was better off staying here.”

Levi stared. No one had told him this.

“The day after that, there was a letter addressed to me in the mail.”

Eren paused his writing, a faint, tight smile on his face.

“The authorization of my honorable discharge.”

*

The next morning, Levi was gone.

Eren felt it as soon as he woke – felt Levi’s absence in the tightness of his skin, the smallness of his bones. He wondered distantly if he’d see the man again, or if Levi had left for good this time.

Funny, how the time still passed, even when it left him behind.

*

A week later, the world was as it once was. Chores resumed their regular intervals, homework was completed on time, and Eren rolled the cuffs of his sleeves up to his elbows and told himself he’d do something about them come winter.

He had a feeling his recent growth spurt had come to an end.

It didn’t matter. Life moved on.

“Aiden,” Eren called, watching the sparring practice with a keen eye, “don’t drop your guard.”

The boy straightened and turned to Eren in confusion. “What was that, sir?”

The words ended in a yelp as the girl caught him on the chest with an open palm. She ran off with a laugh as he stumbled and fell, his surprise etched into every feature.

“She hit me,” the boy gasped, more from alarm than pain.

“I can see that,” Eren chuckled. “You were wide open.”

The boy’s brow furrowed. “But she’s a girl.”

“So is the Survey Corps’ strongest soldier,” a voice cut in from behind. Eren turned. The boy stared.

“And the queen,” Levi continued with an air of easy nonchalance as he picked at the knot of his cravat with his fingers. “She throws a mean punch too, I assure you. The moment you underestimate your opponent is the moment you lose, boy.”

The boy nodded, eyes wide.

“Levi.” It started as a question, but the rest of the words did not follow.

“Eren.”

It started as a statement and needed no continuation. Levi hung his jacket from a fence post, tucking the cravat – neatly folded – into a pocket. Though he seemed calm on the surface, Eren recognized the strength in his shoulders, the tension shivering down his arms and through his hands. The stance was familiar, as was the request.

“I don’t really fight anymore,” Eren told him.

“Indulge me,” Levi replied.

*

They moved with gentle steps in widening circles, the distances between them pressed by their footprints into the soft earth. Around them, tension trembled through the air like the rumble of distant thunder on the billowing clouds.

Eren threw a punch, and Levi dodged it, dancing backwards on quickening feet. Electricity sizzled beneath his skin, bright and sharp as it shivered along his body and then arced across the sky.

Eren advanced again, stronger now, and this time, Levi blocked. For the first time in a long time, the impact hurt, and Levi was glad. After the war, he felt nothing, he had been numbed. This new pain was proof – time may not have aged him, but it ran through him nonetheless, and though its touch brought weakness, he didn’t care.

He had changed, and that was what mattered.

There was something shared there, passed between them in the tangle of their breathing and their blows, there between the spaces of what they hadn’t said, and there, in that place, they found the summer they had longed for while the winters of their distance slowly passed.

They voiced their apologies in their strikes, the unspoken words left to flare and burn and die beneath the thunder of their heartbeats, all of their anger and their sorrow and their fears singing through the sky on the rising wind. And suddenly, they were no longer fighting but falling, their blows long softened and their fires long quelled.

It began to rain.

“I thought you were the Survey Corps’ strongest soldier,” Eren huffed, watching the clouds shift overhead, rolling and swelling like the sea.

“Not since three days ago,” Levi muttered. He grimaced at the cold press of mud on his skin, but did not move.

“You left?”

“I prefer to think of it as ‘retirement.’

Eren frowned at him.

“They don’t need me anymore,” Levi said quietly. “All I do is sign papers and make appearances. There’s only so much a titan-killer can do when there aren’t any titans left.”

“Levi.”

Levi looked to Eren.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Levi shrugged.

“I shouldn’t have left you behind.”

“I shouldn’t have let you leave without me,” Eren replied.

But he was smiling, and the rain plastered his hair to his forehead and smeared the dirt on his cheek and the sight made something in Levi’s chest lurch as the war in his heart finally came to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As implied by the nature of the work, there will be chapters released in the future, despite the work being marked as complete. This is mostly for organizational preferences, please allow this author her quirks <3\. Chapters 3 and 4, Autumn and Winter, are already in the works ~ if you'd like to see more, please subscribe! :D
> 
> Also, I love hearing from you ~ if you liked what you read, let me know in the comments! <3 
> 
> Until next time, 
> 
> tufling

**Author's Note:**

> My fanfic tumblr is [the-ugly-fic-ling](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/the-ugly-fic-ling)! Stop on by for WIP updates, sneak peeks, and author talk! All feedback is lovingly appreciated!


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